Pages

Sunday, 22 June 2014

Food

Food is so important in this novel. Its title suggests that
nature’s ability to produce food for us is more important than whatever we
humans might choose to quarrel about.

We often ask ourselves how could the Holocaust happen. Is
food a clue? A terrible depression hit the world in the 1930s. It was
particularly bad in Germany. Some of the Nazi cruelty towards the Jews involved
deprivation of food.

Food becomes symbolic in the stories. Baking represents
optimism for both Clara Lehrs and Helga, one of the German girls. Food helps to
define both Renate’s Germanness and Enlgishness. She still loves her
Apfelkuchen(apple cake) and Käsekuchen
(cheese cake) and longs for Zwiebelkuchen (a savoury pastry stuffed full with
onions and eaten in the autumn). Yet she learns to love English custard – the
sort made with powder. She eats a grand meal at a very English Lyons Corner
House when she finally accepts her Englishness.

Both sides in the war experience food shortages and
rationing. Both found ways around this. Foraging and growing produce was
important in all three strands of the story.

There are suggestions that Germany may not have had it so
bad as the United Kingdom. Since 1914 it had been self-sufficient for 80% of its
food. Despite Hitler’s call for more “Lebensraum” (living room) it had access
to a huge landmass with a thinner population than the United Kingdom and was
occupying many countries for much of the war. A lot of open countryside offered
many foraging opportunities.

Nevertheless, Germans also had ration cards. Rationing was
brought in gradually: meat, butter, milk, sugar and jam were rationed from the
1 September 1939. Bread and eggs followed on 25 September.

Interestingly, the British system was more about allocation
than rationing initially. Yet British and German ration cards looked remarkably
similar.

We do not meet the Black Market in these stories but we do
have examples of friends and relations in the countryside helping out. Everyone
learns to make good use of the resources they have available.

Potatoes are an overarching theme. They are a staple in all
three story strands. That they come early one year brings hope. The former title of The House on Schellberg Street was Potatoes in Spring. The German
girls are almost driven to despair when their carefully preserved crop gets
frozen and then goes rotten.

Do you find food symbolic?

Take a look at a British or a German ration card. Could you
manage on that amount of food?

Look around where you live. How could you find free or very
cheap food here?